Life of a King is the unlikely true story of Eugene Brown and his one-man mission to give inner-city kids of Washington D.C. something he never had - a future. He discovered a multitude of life lessons through the game of chess during his 18-year incarceration for bank robbery. After his release and reentry into the workforce, Eugene developed and founded the Big Chair Chess Club to get kids off the streets and working towards lives they never believed they were capable of due to circumstances. From his daring introductory chess lessons to group of unruly high school students in detention to the development of the Club and the teens' first local chess competitions, this movie reveals his difficult, inspirational journey and how he changed the lives of a group of teens with no endgame.

Want to improve at chess? Then you'll need to improve your understanding of chess strategy. You probably knew that already - but how to begin to study such a vast and seemingly complex subject? International Master Adam Hunt is a full-time chess teacher and is thus very familiar with this problem. His solution is to present an accessible and easy-to-read guide for club players and juniors. Hunt studies all the key components of chess strategy, including development, king safety, attack and defence, initiative, pawn play and much more. He examines not only grandmaster games but also those played by students, demonstrates model strategic play, identifies typical mistakes and explains how to avoid them. Move by Move provides an ideal platform to study chess

In the battle of chess ideas, the publication in 1991 of Dynamic Chess Strategy was a defining moment. Before Mihai Suba's exceptional book, chess writers had neglected one of the most important factors of a chess position: its dynamic potential. Suba demonstrated that the traditional concept of improving the position was often static and irrelevant, and that classical strategy, if applied dogmatically, can prevent you from finding the right plan and its subsequent moves.

How should systematic chess coaching be structured so that students are able to use their freshly acquired knowledge in their own games? Author Stefan Becker came to an astonishingly simple answer. The solution to every chess problem lies on the board.

It is the imbalances in chess that make for really exciting games. Whether it be exchanging a knight for 2 pawns or your Queen for 3 minor pieces, you will be reaching far more positions with winning chances than players who miss these opportunities. Understanding how to change the nature of the game with piece imbalances shows real chess insight and creativity and this 3 ½ hour DVD from FM Alisa Melekhina is a comprehensive course on how to do just that.

SHOPWORN - Winning Chess Strategies Proven Principles from One of the World's Top Chess Players

Catalog Code: SWB0195EM

Strategy - it's the ultimate secret weapon for championship players around the world. Drawing on his considerable experience in tournament play, Yasser Seirawan shows you how to apply flexible strategic principles to every part of your game. Using Seirawan's simple and effective planning and analysis techniques, you'll enter each game with confidence and energy, ready to play forcefully and intelligently - the way you need to play so you can win!

Sarkhan Guliev presents a wide range of strategic manoeuvres that have been repeatedly employed by great chess players. He shows how masters generate ideas from the games of other masters: positional sacrifices, amazing counterplay concepts, unorthodox exchanges, winning with h2-h4, overcoming a blockade, the advantages of double pawns, the e5 pawn wedge, the uses of the queen-bishop battery, and much more.

Samuel Reshevsky is the ideal person to write a book on positional play because that was exactly the way he played: positionally. Reshevsky preferred to crush his opponents slowly, like a python, rather than to win with a blaze of tactics.

Maneuvering - The Art of Piece Play Finding the Best Squares for Your Pieces

Catalog Code: B0095RE

In this book, premier chess instructor and trainer Mark Dvoretsky examines one of the most important aspects of positional skill, namely the art of playing with pieces, of maneuvering and finding the best squares for your pieces.

NM Dana Mackenzie started playing tournament chess during the ''Fischer boom'' of 1971-1972 and never quit. Champion of North Carolina in 1985, 1987, and became master in 1988. He has a 1-0 career record against world chess champions.

GM Jesse Kraai explains how to use the old Russian rule set to evaluate Tempo in chess. What is Tempi or Tempo in Chess? “The gaining or losing of time and effectiveness relative to one's continued mobility or developing position, especially with respect to the number of moves required to gain an objective: Black gained a tempo”.

Grandmaster Mihai Suba, a former Romanian champion and Senior World Chess Champion, has updated his groundbreaking work and extended it with even more entertaining and witty lessons. The result is a thought-provoking and yet practical guide on chess strategy!

In ''Using the Initiative'', Grandmaster Simon Williams explains the ideas behind his play in two of his games where the correct use of the initiative has proved critical. Follow Simon as he provides his audience with an essential insight into the working thought processes of a Grandmaster – a must for any chess enthusiast looking to improve!

More experienced players understand the power of the bishop. Bishops usually gain in relative strength towards the endgame as pieces are captured and more lines become available on the board. A bishop can easily influence both wings of the board simultaneously. In an open endgame, a pair of bishops is decidedly superior to either a bishop and a knight, or two knights. A player possessing a pair of bishops has a strategic weapon in the form of a long-term threat to trade down to an advantageous endgame.

International Master Bryan Smith explains Nimzo Indian Defense strategies with real games.
This hypermodern opening was developed by Grandmaster Aron Nimzowitsch who introduced it to master-level chess in the early 20th century. Unlike most Indian openings the NimzoIndian does not involve an immediate fianchetto, although Black often follows up with ...b6 and ...Bb7. By pinning White's knight Black prevents the threatened 4.e4 and seeks to inflict doubled pawns on White. White will attempt to create a pawn centre and develop his pieces to prepare for an assault on the Black position.

This DVD consists of studying the strategic game, while acting as a guide for learning how Super GMs dominate positional chess. Over the course of these videos you will see master games explained in-depth by GM Lemos, placing emphasis on every move, explaining the motive and the distinct reasoning and thinking that causes GMs to make certain decisions.

In Strategic Play Jacob Aagaard digs deep into the most complex area of chess thinking. The games and exercises in this book transcend regular chess skills, such as pattern recognition, calculation and positional analysis. Building on the two previous books in the Grandmaster Preparation series, this book challenges the reader to explore the complexities of chess, offering clarity and understanding through Aagaard’s straightforward approach.

This book, written by the hugely popular chess writer Andrew Soltis, is the only one that will help you up your game. He explains if you should exchange your bishop for a knight, which pair of bishops to exchange, when it's important to keep rooks on the board, and when to refuse any trade.

Do you instinctively know what to do in every type of chess position or are you often uncertain about how to proceed? Wouldn't it be really useful to know the best chess strategies and to recognise when they should be used? In this book Sam Collins examines key games from both the classical and modern eras. He analyses the major strategic ideas that have stood the test of time and notes their considerable influence on his own games.

Here IM Paschall analyzes his own games and all of the factors that played into the game progression. While walking through the games Bill gives you tools to build your own game analysis skills to study your own games and learn from them.

We have all seen games – and perhaps even played them – in which a difficult or lost game is salvaged by a brilliant drawing combination. In the early 1970s, Soviet International Master Leonid Verkhovsky collected some of the most fantastic draws ever played.

GM Eugene Perelshteyn earned his third GM norm and the title GM after sharing first place in the 2006 Foxwoods Open, He won the Samford Chess Fellowship in 2002, awarded to the top American Player under 25 years old earning $64,000, Eugene also led the Unversity of Maryland, Baltimore County to a few Pan American championships from 1998-2002.

Many chess players act intimidated and overly cautious when they have the Black pieces. They are so preoccupied with White’s advantage of the first move, that their predominant urge is to defend against possible threats and to safeguard their position. Adorjan shows that White’s advantage is far from obvious and that winning with Black starts with having the right attitude.This book will convince both club players and professionals that there is no reason to be afraid when playing Black.

In this instructive and entertaining book, Grandmaster Neil McDonald studies in depth the key components of successful rule-breaking in chess. Drawing upon his own experience and using examples from modern grandmaster chess, McDonald examines how to avoid stereotypical thinking, how to exploit typical thinking patterns, and how to confuse and beat opponents with surprising ideas.

Understanding how to use pawns and how to handle different pawn structures are important topics for young or improving players to consider. On this new ChessBase DVD, IM and FIDE Senior Trainer Andrew Martin investigates the notion that ‘pawns are the soul of chess’ and tries to explain exactly what this means. The effective use of pawns in the opening leads to the correct development of the pieces and a good game springs naturally from there. The pawn structure must be considered throughout the game and this is something that Martin also touches upon. The viewer will be treated to a tour of excellent games, both old and new, many from the period 2012-2014, which highlight key ideas about the correct use of pawns and from which one cannot fail to improve one’s technique. Thus this DVD is ideal for players below 1800 or indeed ambitious players of any level.

In the second volume of the Chess Player's Mating Guide, the host pays particular attention to the castled king and in particular on ways of exploiting the weakened kingside. Several well-known themes, pawn formations and other attacking weapons are covered in 8 chapters with the goal to challenge the viewer determining and exploiting the weaknesses. IM Robert Ris has made an interesting selection of famous games as well as games from his own practice to demonstrate the typical ideas exploiting the weaknesses in the pawn formation in front of the castled king. The selected material is a good warm-up for the exercises which are presented at the end to test your knowledge on this topic. By then you at least will have the confidence to claim you have become a dangerous attacking player as Tal, Alekhine, Fischer or any of your other favorites. Watch, learn & enjoy!

The f4 Sicilian has become popular and feared because it avoids the frightening amount of knowledge required to play Open Sicilians. It is often not treated with the respect it deserves. The strategic aims are quite simple to understand: CHECKMATE. The first edition was written when the Grand Prix Attack was just becoming noticed by strong chess players. Now there are over 20,000 examples in the databases. Nevertheless, the opening remains based more on the ideas explained by authors Hodgson and Day than on “theory”.

Aimed at club, congress and county players, this DVD provides a vital insight into how a grandmaster thinks and the reasoning behind his choice of moves. In this DVD, Danny provides useful guidance to players who are looking to improve their thinking during a game by analysing the typical strategic plans from the opening until late in the middlegame. Are you ready to go beyond the basics? If the answer is a resounding ‘yes’ then follow Danny as he explains the fundamental ideas and principles behind some of the most complex and challenging positions.

Wilhelm Steinitz was an Austrian and then American chess player and the first undisputed world chess champion from 1886 to 1894. One of the most dominant players in the history of the game, Steinitz was unbeaten in over 25 years of match play.

Sarkhan Guliev presents a wide range of strategic manoeuvres that have been repeatedly employed by great chess players. He shows how masters generate ideas from the games of other masters: positional sacrifices, amazing counterplay concepts, unorthodox exchanges, winning with h2-h4, overcoming a blockade, the advantages of double pawns, the e5 pawn wedge, the uses of the queen-bishop battery, and much more.

In this instructive and entertaining book, Grandmaster Neil McDonald studies in depth the key components of successful rule-breaking in chess. Drawing upon his own experience and using examples from modern grandmaster chess, McDonald examines how to avoid stereotypical thinking, how to exploit typical thinking patterns, and how to confuse and beat opponents with surprising ideas.

If you want to improve your strategic play then it is important to study GM level strategic games with clear explanations. This was the inspiration for this Course from GM Damian Lemos, “Crushing Strategy”. Featuring 4 deeply analyzed games, GM Lemos reveals what the winners saw in the position that their opponent did not and the thinking process that allowed them to create a long-term strategy. It is this way of looking at the position and formulating a plan which will be of great help in taking the ambitious chess player’s game to the next level.